Monday, July 31, 2017

Being a leaderBeing a leader is difficult. It's a skill. I think it's a skill that everyone should have, regardless of age, gender, any life status, etc.There are many ways to go about being a successful leader. There are many different types of successful leadership styles. It's up to each one of us to find our own leadership style. I think mine is about creating situations that help/benefit many people at once. My style is also low-key. I'm not going to be in front of crowds or getting major publicity for being a leader. This feels natural and right for me.

Group mentality I have a mentality where I become really easily influenced by the group of people I'm with. Whatever values that group has, I easily adopt them too. I follow. This means that I easily pick up bad thinking and habits from groups of people. Especially if the group of people is one I knew in my most formative years, as a young child.It takes effort for me to go against group attitudes in these cases. I have to remind myself that at times, being a lone wolf is best.

Sunday, July 30, 2017

Saturday, July 29, 2017

Advice to my younger self One piece of advice I would give to my younger self would be to imagine me in my old age more, as an old lady. It would have been good for me to do this because I could have concentrated on seeing and liking myself for the traits that matter, and not the superficial ones. And I would have felt a lot better about myself.

Friday, July 28, 2017

Thursday, July 27, 2017

I wrote a number of short stories in the last few years. The last one was about a year ago. I'm pretty proud of them. One of them, the first one I wrote actually, is on the sidebar. ("The After School Special"). I also talked about it, and my short stories generally, here.Anyway, I want to talk about my writing process for these short stories. It was difficult and unusual. I wrote these short stories in a deeply disturbed state. I had strong emotions that I needed to release, very strong emotions. I wrote my short stories to help me release these emotions.However, I didn't know how to release my emotions in a controlled and mature manner. Instead, I felt an intense urge to have all my emotions released right away. So I felt an intense urge to finish writing a short story right away. I wrote every short story frenetically. I'm proud of every short story that I wrote during this time period. I think I did a good job of conveying certain deep emotions. But I'm not proud of the way I wrote these short stories.

Wednesday, July 26, 2017

Tuesday, July 25, 2017

Beautiful natureThe colors are so vibrant More vibrant than I could imagine on my own in my wildest dreams The patterns so natural yet complexA sense of how it took thousands, millions, trillions, even more than that, years to create this picture in front of me Such beauty, there must be something behind itIt must have come from something even more beautifulSomething magnificent This is enough for my sight, my senses, my heart, and my soul

In all my talking about myself here, here is another thing I can't believe I haven't mentioned about myself...it's a biggie. Well, this is something about myself that I didn't think was possible to explain before. But now I don't think this is impossible to explain; I think I just was not strong enough to explain this before. ---I had to find myself. I had to save myself. I didn't understand the basic concept of love and sacrifice, I had never really experienced feelings before, I didn't understand the concept of morals/principles, I didn't understand the concept of instincts and had never really experienced following them before, I didn't know how to experience physical/sensual pleasure and didn't know how important this is and didn't know that I was missing out on this...I was twenty-five years old. I had been living a set path in life. I was very set in my ways. From here, how did I turn myself around? Step-by-step. Slowly. I thought about a lot of very abstract things. They were fundamental though. Spiritual things. Meaning of life things. I did this for years. Then, I moved onto less abstract thoughts. I had to undo the unhealthy ways I thought about myself, and replace those thoughts with healthy thoughts. I did this for years. Then, I moved onto less abstract thoughts. I thought about the most meaningful human relationship. I thought about what love is and how to love. I did this for years. I journaled all the time. I repeated things to myself in my head all the time, like a mantra. It was intense. All my thoughts now were new kinds of thoughts, fundamentally different from the kinds of things I had thought before. It was a deliberate action on my part to think all these new, fundamentally different types of thoughts. Through sheer will and hard work, I re-programmed myself.

Friday, July 21, 2017

Favorite things to cookMy favorite things to cook are traditional, home-cooked foods. That is, comfort food, the food that most reminds you of home and when you were a kid, food that is very tasty on an everyday basis.Obviously, the definition of traditional home-cooked food is different for everyone. For me, traditional home-cooked food is some combination of these factors...Chinese/Taiwanese food, American food, Italian food, pretty healthy, involves a minimal to moderate amount of work to make, and nothing too creative--just simple, basic ingredients and flavor combinations.This cooking is my soul! It says a lot about me and my roots :).

Thursday, July 20, 2017

A pleasant memory from workWhen I first started working at my current job, I felt like a total outsider. It was a small company too, which made me feel like I stood out even more.Anyway, one area of the office that I felt at ease in and enjoyed was the lab area in the back. It was really a warehouse space that the company used for other office purposes. It felt laid-back there.The tech support and RMA departments worked back there. In general, they were a friendly bunch of people. There was always some pleasant background noise from talking going on. It wasn't too quiet or too loud.It was also a really big, open space. In addition to the work areas, there was a ping pong table in there. The company also stored random marketing materials and the free office supplies/stationary there.Later on, the company moved everything out of that space. It became part of the warehouse. Anyway, I miss that space as it used to be.

Monday, July 17, 2017

Bullied I used to be bullied at work. It happened to varying degrees, on-and-off, for several years. The gist of it was that there was a group of people at work who needed to feel like they were the "in-crowd." They did this by making big shows of how great friends they all were with each other. I was weak. Both in terms of my position in the company and my personality. They excluded me. They saw how hurt I was, and they didn't care at all. Even though I am not bullied now, even though I forgive them, I will always remember how it felt. Bullied I scream No one hears meI kick I only waste my own energy I cry Seeing myself cry just makes me want to cry even harder I take a knife to myself Finally they cheer

Advice 3I'm on an advice roll. The topic for today is patience.Not too long ago, I wrote a series of posts on patience and my struggles with it. Now I hope I can give some useful advice on it.My advice for being patient is to practice it! Practice it as much as you can. There are no shortcuts for developing patience. Some encouragement that I can give is that the struggle to be patient is universal. You are not alone, far from it.

Sunday, July 16, 2017

Advice 2 More advice-giving today. The topic is leading a healthy lifestyle. My advice for leading a healthy lifestyle is to enjoy it! Enjoy exercise, enjoy eating well, enjoy sleeping/resting your body. One way to enjoy leading a healthy lifestyle is to experience how great it feels to be healthy. Good health is like a natural drug, a natural high. Then you'll want more of it, despite the work. Also, don't be too hard on yourself. Baby steps are good.

Saturday, July 15, 2017

Advice Hi, I would like to give some advice today! The topic is being a well-rounded person. Being a well-rounded person means facing all major facets of life and being adequate in them. It's important because it's a natural way to be. My advice for being a well-rounded person is to be okay with just being adequate. A well-rounded person isn't spectacular in specific areas, but rather, has no major shortcomings in any of them. My other piece of advice is to be proactive about facing your greatest weaknesses.In my opinion, a well-rounded person, though just average, is a pretty strong person :).

Wednesday, July 12, 2017

HonestI love honesty. I love it, love it, love it. By the way, I don't think honesty is an excuse for, or the same thing as, excessive bluntness. I think honesty is commendable; excessive bluntness is not. I think the difference between the two is that honesty is not selfish while excessive bluntness is. I love honesty for this very reason...it's totally unselfish. When we lie to others, we gain the upper hand. We know something that they don't know. We diminish them. On the other hand, when we are honest with others, we put ourselves at their mercy. Who knows how they will handle the truth and how that will affect us? But it's more important to give them knowledge than to worry about the consequences for us. I think honesty is especially commendable because...it's so easy to lie. There are so many opportunities to lie, lying is so easy to do, and lying is easy to get away with. Honesty requires great self-control and unselfishness. I also don't believe in omitting the truth. That is, not saying anything when you know that the other person wrongly believes something. This may or may not be considered lying, but it's definitely selfish. Finally, white lies. This is a gray area for me. While lying is always bad, sometimes it's necessary for the greater good. Thus, white lies can be okay. But I think white lies should only be used sparingly and in extreme circumstances. I think it's easy to get into the habit of telling white lies often. I think it's usually ultimately better to tell the truth.I'm passionate about honesty!

Monday, July 10, 2017

Feelings It's pretty obvious on my blog that I love feelings. Sometimes feelings get a bad rap because we don't control them when we should or because we're afraid of facing the unpleasant ones. But that's not a problem with feelings - that's a problem with us. I really think feelings are a gift. They're quite an experience. Feelings Intense A rush Natural A climax

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Guilt I operate a lot out of guilt. Well, I used to. So there are still remnants of that for me.I'm not talking about the good kind of guilt...the kind where we know or sensed we've done something bad, and then we feel guilty about it.I'm talking about a bad kind of guilt. Guilt that comes from low self-esteem. I try to compensate for my low self-esteem by overly defining myself through achievement. I end up feeling like I'm never doing enough, and I feel a lot of unnecessary guilt. I would like to flush this bad kind of guilt out of my system. I may have grown up feeling and operating this way, but I can be totally different now.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Being a giver I think one hallmark of being an adult is a focus on giving rather than receiving. When our thoughts are fundamentally, "What can I do for others or the situation?", versus "What's in it for me?"I think having this attitude requires constant self-monitoring.

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Genuine laughter Back in April, I had to gather my coworkers for an information session at work about life insurance benefits. It was totally optional. Not many of them were interested. I felt bad for the presenters if barely anyone showed up, so I tried my best to get my coworkers to go.Anyway, it ended up being a small, but decently-sized, group of us at the presentation. Before the presentation started, we were all sitting in the conference room, making small talk and just waiting for the presenters to start.As we were doing this...for a moment, I sensed that...hey, we're all really getting along. The small talk doesn't feel awkward or boring or forced. Everyone seems involved in the group conversation and seems to be enjoying it (including me). There's genuine laughter amongst all of us. What was cool was that the group of us was a mix of people from very different departments. We were a diverse group of people.I love it when very different people are able to come together in a group and really enjoy each other's company! This is my idea of the most genuine and the best social situation. It feels natural.

A breakdown When I was in the middle of law school, almost ten years ago, I had a mental breakdown. It wasn't a temporary, small thing. It was sudden, severe, and heading towards being a permanent thing (going permanently crazy).No one could see it. But there were things going on in me that were horribly wrong. It was only a matter of time before there would be horrible consequences that people could see. It wasn't a quarter-life crisis thing, it wasn't the pressures of law school, it wasn't the thought of practicing law which I wasn't suited for. Those theories trivialize what I went through. It was way deeper than that. Life felt extremely empty to me. So empty that it made me shiver. I'm serious about the shivering. One day, all of a sudden, my hands started shaking. One second they weren't, and then the next second they were. And they wouldn't stop shaking. Not for a second. It was all from my mental state. I knew that if something didn't change in my life, if something drastic didn't happen, this constant shaking was going to be permanent.The only thing that could cure me was love. Great, abundant, overflowing love.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

I've been told at times that I give off a classy vibe. Something like that. I'm pretty sure it was meant as a compliment. While I never disliked hearing this or anything, I didn't care much for it either. I just didn't think that having a classy/elegant aura was super great or anything, not a big deal. Anyway, I think I should give myself more credit. Classy Self-controlIntelligentUniqueUnforgettable

In all my talking about myself here, I have not really talked about what I was like in high school. I've touched on it a little here and there, but I haven't focused on it really. I'm always curious to know what people were like back when they were in high school. I feel like this part of our history must reveal so much about us. Sure, we might not be the same people that we were back in high school (or maybe we are still very similar to that person), but who we were in high school does deeply affect us. I think of the high school years as our first foray into being an adult. I'm not exactly sure how to describe myself in high school. I was a lot of things.I think I'll describe myself from the standpoint of how a guy in my high school probably viewed me. Not that this perspective means everything. I just think that it's an interesting way to think about this question. My guess is that a guy in my high school, if he knew me, probably thought of me as...Super quiet, unfriendly, very concerned and successful with achievement, and totally unemotional. I was not popular with guys in high school. I can't even say that I was desirable in a mousy, meek sense. I wish I had something better to say about myself here, but I don't. Oh well.